The present invention relates to data processing for the communication of data over an information network.
In particular, the present invention relates to data processing for limiting, during a multimedia session involving a first user terminal, operations of transferring or replicating a media stream to other user terminals.
The expression information network must be understood in the broadest sense and the information network can in particular be a mobile telephone network, for example that called third generation (3GPP).
The development of telecommunications has allowed an increasing number of users to have available one or more media terminals, such as mobile telephones, computers or digital personal assistants, via which they can establish multimedia sessions.
In order to allow communication between information networks operating under different protocols, a standardized architecture called IMS (for Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) has been developed. The IMS architecture is an open multimedia architecture which uses the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) protocol.
Therefore, the invention relates more particularly to an information network operating under the SIP signalling protocol (Session Initiation Protocol). The SIP protocol is a standardized protocol which makes it possible to establish, modify and terminate multimedia sessions. The SIP protocol is a protocol of the request/response type in the sense where, for each message sent by a source, there is at least one associated response from the recipient confirming reception of the message sent.
A user moreover has the possibility of subscribing to an inter-terminal transfer service, making it possible, during a multimedia session, to carry out operations of transferring or replicating a media stream to other terminals. During the establishment of a multimedia session between a terminal of a user having subscribed to the inter-terminal transfer service and a correspondent, a so-called SCC AS (Service Centralization and Continuity Application Server) server acts as an intermediary between the terminal and the correspondent, so as to then allow the transfer operations, i.e. replacement of the terminal by another terminal, and replication operations, i.e. copying a media stream sent to the terminal towards another terminal. The correspondent can be for example a terminal of another user or an application server. The transfer or replication operation is carried out in a fashion which is not visible to the correspondent, who is therefore not informed of these operations and has no control over them.
However, the owner of the content delivered by an application server through the multimedia session may wish to control to which user terminals this content is delivered, for example to prevent the delivery of the content to multiple terminals, and/or to certain types of terminals, and/or to terminals belonging to different users.